Bound Item Containing “Exhortatio ad Nigros Servos” and Other Annotations, 1776, circa 1815-1819

This bound item is a copy of volume one of Joannes Caspar Saettler's Theologia Moralis Universa (Strasbourg, 1776). Bound with it is a printed German catechism, several pages of manuscript notes in various hands, annotations on the printed pages of the Theologia, and a handwritten exhortation in English, circa 1815-1819.

The exhortation, bearing the Latin title “Exhortatio ad nigros servos” (“An exhortation to black slaves”), is addressed to the enslaved community at White Marsh, the Jesuit plantation in Prince George’s County, Maryland. It attempts to rationalize that the enslaved community has a Catholic duty to work diligently for the Jesuits. It also explains that only those “disobedient to the overseer” were in danger of being sold; this was an attempt to compel obedience, as well as an acknowledgment that enslaved individuals had been sold away from White Marsh - and their families and community - in the past. The address has been attributed, at various times, to Paul Kohlmann, S.J. (who was stationed at White Marsh in 1815 and again in 1819), and also his brother Anthony Kohlmann, S.J., who was master of novices at White Marsh from 1815 to 1817.

This folder contains materials related to Jesuit slaveholding.